


Shadow on the Snow

by Serie11



Series: Femslash February 2018 [28]
Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, F/F, Light Angst, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, The Frozen Wilds Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 09:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13830987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: “One of the reasons I am teaching you to read,” Rost says patiently. “A person should always know what their soulmark says.”Aloy stares at him. “What’s a… soulmark?”Rost points at the letters on her arm. They circle her wrist, forming a perfect circle. “That is your soulmark, Aloy. It consists of the first words your soulmate will speak to you. It’s how you know who your soulmate is.”





	Shadow on the Snow

 

Aloy is six when Rost starts to teach her to read. The letters and the lines are fine for her to learn, but she would rather be outside playing and running around, because it’s funner than sitting still with Rost and tracing figures into the dirt. They don’t even have anything to read besides the words that Rost writes – but still, Rost says that it’s important that she learns.

“Reading is a skill that you must master,” Rost tells her, even though he doesn’t say _why._ It’s annoying. It isn’t until she’s mostly mastered the whole alphabet and Rost is teaching her about upper and lower case letters that she realises that there _is_ something to read, after all.

“There are letters on my arm!” Aloy shrieks one day, after suddenly coming to the realisation that the things that she had been drawing into the dirt are also inked into her skin. The sheer strangeness of seeing them on her skin when they should be in the dirt has her scratching at the words, trying to get them to come off.

“Aloy! What are you doing?” Rost comes out of the cabin and yanks her hand away from her arm. Aloy sniffles a little, because her arm hurts now, but Rost makes a sad face as well when she cries, so she tries to keep her tears back.

“There’s words on there,” she eventually mutters, scuffing her toe in the dirt. Where words _should_ be.

“Ah,” Rost says. “Well, that’s normal.”

“Huh?” Aloy peers up at him, confused.

“It’s one of the reasons I am teaching you to read,” Rost says patiently. “A person should always know what their soulmark says.”

Aloy stares at him. “What’s a… soulmark?”

Rost points at the letters on her arm. They circle her wrist, forming a perfect circle. “That is your soulmark, Aloy. It consists of the first words your soulmate will speak to you. It’s how you know who your soulmate is.”

“They’ll… talk to me?” Aloy asks quietly, staring at the letters. She could make most of them out, but the letters were small, and she only knew a few of the words.

Rost looks down at the words and his brow crinkled in a way that he only did when he was worried. “Yes, they will talk to you.”

Aloy hugs her arm close to her chest. Even though she can’t read the words, it’s a promise – that one day, she will get to talk to someone who isn’t Rost. That one day, she will be able to have a friend – a _soulmate_. Someone who had the first words that Aloy would speak to them, written on their skin.

As Rost teaches her more letters, she finally, finally, manages to decode what her phrase says.

_An outlander, huh. Well, who else would join me on this path I’ve taken._

The words scare her. Whenever Rost isn’t around, she takes to tracing them, wondering what they mean. An _outlander_? Does that mean her soulmate is from outside the Sacred Lands? That was so far away – Aloy had only just begun to range all over the Embrace with Rost, and she thought that it was such an immense piece of land. The only thing she knows for sure is that her soulmate isn’t a Nora. They call her _outcast_ when they see her, and spit at her and make her run away. She doesn’t let herself cry until she’s completely sure that they’re gone, far away enough so that they’ll never know how their words hurt her.

 _Outcast,_ not _outlander._ Her soulmate is not Nora.

As she grows up, the words change meaning. Of course her soulmate wouldn’t be one of the Nora. Not when the Nora have done nothing for her, not when they use every opportunity to put her down, not when they refuse to talk to her. The only person who even tried was the boy she met, after she saved him from the herd of striders. She would like to see him again, but she never does. Of course. The only person in her life that is a constant is Rost, but she doesn’t tell him her future plans. She needs answers from the Matriarchs, about why she was cast out, about who her mother was, and why they thought that sending her away was in any way a good idea. She needs that information, like someone else might need water, and she hopes that her soulmate won’t begrudge her finding it out before Aloy leaves to find them.

Because that’s the second part of her plan. After the Proving, after she has her answers, she’s leaving. The Nora don’t deserve her. Not after everything that they’ve done. It’s something that Aloy is certain of.

Then, of course, the Proving actually happens – and Aloy is given only more questions, without answers. Teersa even makes her a Seeker, so she can leave the Sacred Lands with Nora permission. _Permission._ The very thought of it riles something inside her. She’d been planning on leaving anyway. The Nora have no hold over her.

So she leaves Nora lands and all the darkness that they hold – _years of isolation, the judging eyes of other Nora, Rost’s death_ – and heads west, towards Meridian. Finding out who attacked the Proving and killed Rost is a solid goal, one that she can pursue while also keeping her ears ready for the words that she knows by heart. She reaches Meridian and – nothing. She finds Olin, goes to Maker’s End, and – nothing. She wrecks her fury on the Eclipse hiding in Nora lands, she clears out bandit camps, she completes hunting trials, she finds Erend’s sister and loses her, she foils an assassination attempt on the Sun-King, and – nothing. She goes into the Grave-Hoard and destroys the Eclipse’s focus network and finds the Alpha clearance under Sunfall and races back to Nora lands to save them ( _even after everything they’ve done_ ) and – nothing.

Even as she delves into the ruins of GAIA Prime, Aloy is half expecting to hear her soulmate’s first words. She’s always half expecting, half hoping. Her soulmate is out there, somewhere. Aloy has her answers now – she knows who her mother is, or isn’t, and she knows so much about the ancient past. She knows that she has to stop the end of the world, because otherwise, how will she live long enough to find her soulmate?

After HADES is defeated, Aloy takes to wandering again. She visits Brightmarket and Blazon Arch and Free Heap and Sunfall, but no one there calls her _outlander_ and asks her to walk a forbidden path. Aloy searches and searches, but it isn’t until she talks to a young noble with his head clearly in the clouds does she expand her search north.

In Song’s Edge, her heart races every time someone calls her outlander, but still no one speaks the words etched around her wrist. She wants to tear apart the camp with fury, she wants to stalk up to every person and demand that they open their mouths until she finds the one with the right words. But she doesn’t – by this time, she’s learned restraint and compassion, and she does want to get to the bottom of the mystery in the Cut. So she does what she’s always been good at doing, and she helps. She slays machines and bandits and finds a Shaman and becomes a Chieftain. She solves the riddle of the towers and rescues CYAN and destroys all the fireclaws she can find. And still, and still, she hasn’t found the person who will speak her words.

Aloy tries not to let it get to her. With all the people she’s known and talked to now, she knows a lot more than she did a year ago. Some people don’t find their soulmates until they’re much older, in their thirties or forties. Sometimes they don’t find them at all – their words smudge and fade until there’s a permanent, dirty bruise on their skin. Aloy checks her soulmark every day, but the words are still clear cut and sharp and readable. Her soulmate is still alive, and that means that they have a chance.

Even though Aloy has found new friendships in Varl and Vanasha and Avad and Erend, the part of her that is forever a six year old calls out desperately for her soulmate. Someone who she could talk to. Maybe, someone who wouldn’t be tied down like everyone seemed to be. They all had previous relationships and loyalties that always meant that Aloy travelled _alone._ She wants to find her soulmate – the person who will be best suited to understand her. The person who would look at her and would want to know the _real_ Aloy, not just the front that she put up for the people she met. Even her friends didn’t know about her loneliness, about her aching, desperate desire to be loved. She knows that she could easily go back to Meridian and fall into Vanasha or Erend’s bed, but she doesn’t want that – she wants her soulmate. She wants to know who it is. After being in the Cut for this long, she knows that they must be Banuk. It feels like she’s helped and talked to every person in the Cut, so that leaves her with one option.

She heads north.

She’s talked to Aratak and has a few new items of equipment that will help her in Ban-Ur. Snowshoes and a tent capable of withstanding a blizzard and warm clothes meant for Ban-Ur’s freezing temperatures are some of the things that now fill her pack. They’re a sign of her commitment to this endeavour. She _will_ find her soulmate, even if that means she has to hike all the way to Ban-Ur to do so.

As it turns out, she doesn’t actually need to go that far.

The clanging of a machine fight draws her attention just as she gets to the top of a ridge. Aloy peers around until she sees movement at the end of the valley – what appears to be one person, fighting against several lancehorns and watchers.

She grabs her bow, and as always, hope bubbles in her chest. _Maybe this was the one._ Aloy grabs a slipwire and darts into the fight, arrows hitting canisters and taking down lancehorns as fast as she can. The person fighting alongside her is using frost bombs and a spear to take down the machines, and Aloy notes that their spear fighting technique is fairly good. Okay, it’s pretty excellent. She’ll admit it.

Finally, Aloy kills the last lancehorn. She rummages around for parts in a few of the downed machines, before heading up to where the fighter is.

It’s a woman, and she destroys the last watcher on the field as Aloy approaches.

She looks up, and Aloy’s breath is taken away. Her narrow eyes are framed by her sharp headpiece, and the sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks makes Aloy’s heart ache. She’s beautiful.

“An outlander, huh. Well, who else would join me on this path I’ve taken.”

Aloy’s heart stops.

“Which path would that be?” Aloy asks, half dazed. She’s finally found her. Her soulmate. After a lifetime of looking, it doesn’t feel real.

The woman’s eyes widen, and she laughs. It’s not a particularly nice sound. “Oh, of all the times.” She stares at Aloy, and Aloy stares back. “A path away from tradition, and away from the werak.”

A rumble, and both of them turn to see more machines coming – scrappers. Aloy’s hands tighten on her bow. There’s no way she’s getting separated from her soulmate, not after they just found each other.

“Damn,” her soulmate swears. “They’re here for the metal.”

“I’ve been told the Banuk don’t accept help,” Aloy says carefully. “Is it true?” Will you accept _my_ help?

“They don’t. I do.”

Aloy grins sharply, and jumps into the fray. There are plenty of scrappers and glinthawks, but they’re more of an annoyance than anything. By the time the fighting is over, Aloy has come to the conclusion that this woman is a skilled hunter, and someone that Aloy doesn’t mind fighting alongside. Almost feeling giddy, she heads back over to her.

“You fight well. I am Ikrie.” Ikrie nods her head.

“Aloy,” Aloy says.

Ikrie looks her up and down. “I know that we’ve just met, but I must ask a favour of you. A friend of mine has broken her leg, up on the ice. It would be good to have your help in getting her down.”

All Aloy hears is – _will you join me on this path I’ve taken._ Right now, she would do anything for Ikrie, and helping her friend is hardly a huge favour to ask. Aloy puts out her right hand, and Ikrie grasps her wrist.

“I’ll help you,” Aloy promises. “I’ll walk this path with you.”

Ikrie grins, her teeth white against her red lips. “Good. Let’s go, then.”

Aloy follows, her heart bursting.

**Author's Note:**

> This prompt was: soulmate AU. As you could probably tell. 
> 
> Anyway, I DID IT!!! 28 fics this month, whew. Tbh, can hardly believe. [Here is my HZD sideblog if you want more Good hzd content!!](https://valaloy.tumblr.com/) My main blog is wolf-fitz as well :) Thank you for reading all my femslash fics, I really enjoyed writing them :D


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